“There are other ways than the river. You don’t know the way back to your nest, but I do.”
Call regarded the elemental, who looked up at him through the stone bars of its cage in return. “A shortcut back to my room?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere! No one knows the Magisterium better than Warren. But then you will let me out of the cage. You’ll agree to get me out of the cage.”
How much did Call trust a weird lizard that wasn’t really a lizard?
Maybe if he drank some of the water — which was gross, full of eyeless fish and weird sulfur and minerals — maybe he could do better magic. Like the way he had with the sand. Like he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe he could draw the current backward and bring the boat to him.
Yeah, right. He had no idea how to do that.
Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are.
Apparently, he didn’t know lots of things.
“Fine,” said Call. “If you get me back to my room, I’ll let you out of the cage.”
“Let me out now,” wheedled the elemental. “We could go faster.”
“Nice try.” Call snorted. “Which way?”
The little lizard directed him, and he began to walk, his clothes still wet and cold against his skin.
They passed sheets of rock that seemed to melt into one another, columns of limestone and curtains of it, falling like draperies. They passed a bubbling stream of mud snaking back and forth between Call’s feet. Warren urged him ahead, the blue flame on his back turning the cage into a lantern.
At one point, the corridor narrowed so much that Call had to turn sideways and squeeze himself between the sheets of stone. He finally popped out the other side like a cork out of a bottle, a long tear in his shirt where it had caught on an edge of rock.
“Shhh,” whispered Warren, crouching ahead of him. “Quiet, little mage.”
Call was standing in the dark corner of a huge cavern full of echoing voices. The cavern was almost circular, the stone ceiling overhead sweeping up into a massive dome. The walls were decorated with jewel formations that illustrated various weird, possibly alchemical symbols. In the center of the room was a rectangular stone table with a candelabra rising out of it, each of a dozen tapers dripping thick streams of wax. The big, high-backed chairs around the table were filled by Masters who looked like rock formations themselves.
Call flattened himself into the shadows so he wouldn’t be spotted, pressing the cage behind him to hide the light.
“Young Jasper showed bravery in throwing himself in front of the wyverns,” said Master Lemuel, with a glance at Master Milagros, amusement showing on his face. “Even if he was unsuccessful.”
Anger raced through Call’s veins. He and Tamara and Aaron had worked hard to do well on that test and they were talking about Jasper?
“Bravery will only get you so far,” said Master Tanaka, the tall, thin Master who taught Peter and Kai. “The students who returned from our most recent mission had plenty of bravery, and yet those were some of the worst injuries I’ve seen since the war. They barely made it back alive. Even the fifth years weren’t prepared for elementals working together like that —”
“The Enemy is behind this,” Master Rockmaple interrupted, running a hand through his ruddy beard. The image of the injured students, bloody and burned, coming through the gate had stuck with Call, and he was glad to know that wasn’t how students returned from a typical mission. “The Enemy is breaking the truce in ways he thinks we won’t be able to trace back to him. He is getting ready to return to war. I’ll wager that, while we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking he’s staying in his remote sanctuary, working on his horrible experiments, he’s actually been making greater and more devastating weapons, not to mention alliances.”
Master Lemuel snorted. “We have no proof. This could simply be a change among the elementals.”
Master Rockmaple whirled on him. “How can you trust the Enemy? Anyone who wouldn’t balk at putting a piece of the void inside animals and even children, who slaughtered the most vulnerable among us, is capable of anything.”
“I’m not saying I trust him! I just don’t want to prematurely panic that the truce has been broken. World forefend that we break it because of our fears and, by doing so, incite a new war, one worse than the last.”
“Everything would be different if we had a Makar on our side.” Master Milagros tucked her pink lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “This year’s entering students had exceptional Trial scores. Is it possible that our Makar could be among them? Rufus, you’ve had experience with this before.”
“It’s too soon to tell anything,” said Rufus. “Constantine himself didn’t start showing signs of an affinity with chaos magic until he was fourteen.”
“Maybe you just refused to look for them then as you refuse to look for them now,” said Master Lemuel disagreeably.
Rufus shook his head. His face was rough-edged in the flickering light. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We need a different plan. The Assembly needs a different plan. It is too great a burden to set upon the shoulders of any child. We should all remember the tragedy of Verity Torres.”
“I agree, a plan is needed,” Master Rockmaple said. “Whatever the Enemy’s scheme, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and act like it will go away. Nor can we simply wait forever for something that might never happen.”
“Enough of this bickering,” said Master North. “Master Milagros was saying earlier that she’s discovered a possible error in the third algorithm of folding air into metal. I thought perhaps we could discuss the anomaly.”
Anomaly? Figuring that there was no point risking discovery to listen to something he wouldn’t understand anyway, Call slid back into the gap between the rocks. He wriggled through, emerging on the other side with his mind full of his father’s words. What was it he had said? The more you learn about the magical world, the more you will be drawn into it — drawn into its old conflicts and dangerous temptations.
The war with the Enemy had to be the conflict Call’s father had been talking about.
Warren stuck his scaly nose through the bars, his tongue flicking in the air. “We go a new way. Better way. Fewer Masters. Safer.”
Call grunted, and followed Warren’s directions. He was beginning to wonder if Warren actually knew where they were going, or if he was just leading Call deeper into the caves. Maybe he and Warren would spend the rest of their lives wandering the twisty caverns. They would become a legend to new apprentices who would speak about the lost student and his caged cave lizard in hushed tones of dread.
Warren pointed and Call scrambled up the side of a pile of rocks, sending shards flying.
The corridors were bigger now, zigzagged with sparkling patterns that teased Call’s mind, as if they could be read if he only knew how. They passed through a cave full of odd underground plants: big red-tipped ferns that stood in still pools of glittering water, long fronds of lichen drifting from the ceiling and brushing against Call’s shoulders. He looked up and thought he saw a pair of glittering eyes disappearing into the shadows. He stopped.
“Warren —”